Second Display In MaLa

[The Chugnut]

Hi guys,

A couple of weeks back I dug out a second display that is sitting behind me, on it's side, for vertical shooters. I was using MAME32 because it was as easy as right clicking a game -> properties -> //display2.

I had a much needed format last night and I've made myself a emulation partition. I fancied using MaLa again because, well, it's awesome and I love playing around with it. 

My question is, is there any way I can get only some games to output on //display2? I realise MaLa was never intended to do anything like this, so I'm not getting my hopes up. 

Thanks!

[SGT]

If you just have a few games you can create/edit the ini file for each game in the mame\ini folder.  I don't use this, but I think its:

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screen         \\.\Display2
If you want all vertical games to display on the second monitor, I would be tempted to create a batch file to launch from Mala instead of Mame.exe.  If Mala doesn't have an orientation variable to pass to the batch file, you could move the roms you want to display on the second monitor to a rom subfolder.  A utility like romlister can (I think) create a batch file that could move all your vertical roms to this rom subfolder.  Mala could then pass the subfolder name to the batch file.  The batch file would use that variable to determine which screen command line parameter to start Mame up with.

There may be an easier way to configure Mame to do this, but I don't know of one.  Anyone?

[The Chugnut]

Wow, thanks mate!

There's probably going to be quite a few. Thinking about it, it's going to be all of my favourites with a vertical orientation, not just shooters - so the batch file method would be ideal.

I'll need to look into creating batch files a little first, I haven't had the need to make one in about 15 years. 

Again, thanks for your speedy response!

[SGT]

You need to check with Swindus to see if there is an orientation variable that you could pass to the batch file.  That would prevent you from having to move your vertical roms to a subfolder.  If there is no such variable, you'll have to do something like this:

1.  Create a subfolder called vertical under your roms folder.  Get romlister and ask NOP to help you create a batch file to move all your vertical roms to this subfolder.

2.  Click the checkbox that tells Mala to "search in subfolders" for roms.

3.  Tell Mala to run Mame.cmd instead of Mame.exe

4.  Configure the Mame command line in Mala to read: %rom% %path%

The mame.cmd could look something like this:

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if "%2" == "c:\emulators\mame\roms\vertical" goto vertical

mame.exe %1
exit

:vertical
mame.exe %1 -screen \\.\Display2

exit

Before I went to ANY trouble, I would run the following or whatever game from a C prompt in the Mame folder just to verify it runs on your second monitor:

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mame.exe phoenix -screen \\.\Display2
If you are using mame32 instead of the command line version of mame, this may not work.

[The Chugnut]

Cool, I'll give Mr Swindus a PM tonight.

Thanks again man, much appreciated. 

[swindus]

I have added conditional command line parameter for MAME. With this new feature you can add '-screen \\.\Display2' to the command line for all vertical games for example. Here are some screenshot of the new dialog:

[SGT]

I have added conditional command line parameter for MAME. With this new feature you can add '-screen \\.\Display2' to the command line for all vertical games for example.

Wow.  That's a great addition.  Is that currently a WIP, or was that put in the last release.  I can see a lot of possible uses for this. 

Thanks Swindus.

[swindus]

Its currently a WIP but I will do some testing and release it as v1.04 later this day.

[The Chugnut]

You Sir, are an absolute legend!
Wouldn't have thought there was any demand for anything like that.

I look forward to seeing how this turns out!

Thanks Swindus! 

[The Chugnut]

Just a little update - it works superbly! 

At first it seemed not to be. I couldn't get it to output anything to the second display - even via the command prompt.

Turns out the correct syntax is:

Code: [Select]

-screen \\.\DISPLAY2rather than

Code: [Select]

-screen \\.\Display2or

Code: [Select]

-screen \\.\display2
Took me an embarrassingly long time to figure that out.

From exiting a game, MaLa regains focus again without any problems.

A job well done! Again, thanks for the help SGT and Swindus!
It will be interesting to see what uses for the conditional statements some of the more experienced guys like yourselves come up with.

[SGT]

Turns out the correct syntax is:

Code: [Select]

-screen \\.\DISPLAY2

Sorry about that.  I had no idea it was case sensitive.  Glad you got it working.

[loadman]

Just a little update - it works superbly! 

Can you please post a picture here of your two screen MaLa setup.  That would be sweet

Also..an entry into the MaLa Wiki so that other know how to do this would be nice 

[mccoy178]

Thanks for doing this fellas.  I've been wanting to do this for the shooting games for awhile now.